This is a different type of story that I've had sitting away for a while, whilst it doesn't have the physical passion and sexual energy of most of my stories and the stories on here; I wanted to explore a more emotional and dramatic story expanding my writing and that I hope you all enjoy and like always give me feedback on what you all think.
Also I'm also interested in knowing do people like to picture what the characters look like off the descriptions or adding sort of a picture as a guide to how I picture?
“Yeah, exactly, so if we can transfer the Alloway contract into the….” I get distracted halfway through my sentence as I watch this guy walking into the Café where a group of us are having a working brunch because our usual office space is being completely gutted and renovated. However, work still has to continue, so we meet at the same cafe three times a week so that we’re all on the same page and have the same social interaction we would have in the office.
I look at the guy intently, who has nothing but solid, tanned muscles without overdoing it on the size. As I get a good look at his face, I recognise him instantly but can’t place where I know it from. Sitting there, I’m distracted by him as I try to get a good look at his face and eyes as I keep watching his movements before I think I recognise who he is.
A whole wave of emotions comes over as I can’t believe what I’m seeing is actually happening, but then I’m sick with anxiety because what if I’m jumping to the wrong conclusion yet again, and it’s not who I thought it was but then on the flipside what if it is the person who I believe that it is and then I don’t say anything I’ll be so pissed off with myself.
I sit there and finish off what I need to say about work as the guy starts to leave “Sorry guys, just give me a second”.
Getting up, I follow the guy out of the Café and catch up to him as my head tells me that I shouldn’t do this because I’m going to look like an absolute idiot, but my heart says that I have to do this, no matter what.
I walk up behind him, getting a good look at him from behind in a black T-shirt and gym shorts. Looking at him, I can tell it’s not long since he’s been for a workout, especially overhearing him talking to someone at the Café as he orders in a pretty charming and charismatic way. “Hey bro, do you have a second?” I say as he turns around and stops with a friendly smile, and I look him directly in the eye.
“Yeah bro, what’s up?” he says as he turns around with no natural suspicion about why a stranger is stopping him in the street initially, but as he turns around toward me, I can see a sense of panic and shock on his face as I look at him and am more confident than ever that I’m making the right decision to talk to him. Standing in the street, people are walking past in what is a relatively busy part of the city as I look at him intently and notice him very quickly hide his necklace from me so that I can’t see it.
I stand there for a second “Sorry this might sound like I’m a total weirdo but your name isn’t Keegan by any chance is it?” I ask as I see a look of anxiety go over his face, and the colour drains the second I ask that, almost as if I am a police officer looking to arrest him, but he takes a drink of his Coffee and shakes off the question.
“Oh… nah sorry bro, not me I’m afraid”, he says with pretty much all his confidence and charm exuding back like it was only a split-second failure of confidence in his personality. “I’m Ashton,” he says convincingly as I keep looking into his eyes and know that I’m not wrong despite him saying something different.
I stand there wanting to push the issue, but I know how stupid I already look to stop a random stranger and ask him if he’s someone he isn’t, even though I’m more confident than ever about this.
“All good man; sorry if I came across as some sort of weirdo, you just reminded me a lot of someone I used to know but hadn’t seen for a very long time”, I say as he smiles and looks at me as I start to turn around and walk away. “Don’t worry about it, bro; I totally get it, but sorry, I’m not that person”, he says, even offering me a fist bump as I turn and walk away back to the café as he heads down Blundell Street.
“Hey bro, I’ll be around at yours to pick you up at about 8” even after six years, that text message is still burnt into my mind because I was supposed to pick my best mate Keegan up from his place the next morning because we were meant to have a group study session at the library, but that’s where things changed in my life forever.
Pulling up outside Keegan’s house, it was a place that I didn’t want to spend too much time at when his family were around, so I did the usual thing by pulling up and honking the horn before sending the reminder text message as per usual that I was waiting out the front for him.
Sitting in my car, a few minutes went by, which was nothing unusual because Keegan had the worst sense of time possible but without any response in texting me back or him being at the car, it started to get strange.
Another five or so minutes passed before I went and knocked on the door against what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t sit here all morning without any answer. I knocked on the door, and opening the door was Keegan’s Dad, the formidable Andrew Warwick, the then Mayor of Culver Valley, a two-faced snake who ruled the town with an Iron Fist and with connections with some of the worst people around but the charm and charisma that would’ve been able to sell Ice to Eskimos, have it taken from them and then sell it back to them without them even knowing.
“Good Morning Charles,” he said in his usual tone of condescension that showed that he despised me, and even though he put on a charming act not to outwardly show it, he made it clear in how he acted that I wasn’t good enough for him and his family and we were beneath him. The reason for the dislike was always so petty as he saw my family as “New Money” because our family wealth grew when my grandfather sold off his small chain of Independent Service Stations to a major oil company in the 1980s rather than being the typical old money.
“If you are here looking for Keegan, then he has already left because he communicated something to me about how you were meeting at that… diner you two seem to frequent with that other friend”, he says with the utter contempt that these places even existed even though he knew how to market himself walking through one and meeting what he probably thought was the great unwashed.
The comments leave me more confused because it’s definitely not what Keegan and I had planned, but I’ve had to cover for him plenty of times, so I know that I need to play along with what’s happening even though I have zero clue of what is going on.
“That’s right, I got my days mixed confused because I was rushing this morning and running late”, I say, trying to be convincing that it’s not too hard with Mr Warwick because he shows so little interest in me that I could tell him anything and he’d be more interested in having as little to do with me as possible even though I’ve known Keegan for 15 years.
“Would that be all this morning? I do have business to attend to before my driver arrives,” Mr Warwick says as I apologise for interrupting him. He gives me a condescending nod “Apology accepted Charles, we all tend to make mistakes and we should be trying harder not to make them happen”, he says pointedly at me as I walk down the driveway.
Walking down the driveway, it’s so hard not to turn back to the house, which is a 1910-built family home with six bedrooms, four bathrooms and every feature under the sun that anyone flaunting wealth wants to show. I have the urge just to give him the finger as I walk off, but with cameras placed everywhere and Keegan showing me where they all are, I know not to do anything as I head to the car.
Leaving the Warwick house, I’m so confused because Keegan has never left me in the dark like this before, and it’s starting to worry me. I think about the past because every time he has needed me to cover for him, it’s been planned in advance so I can get my story straight, but this is unusual because it’s entirely come out of the blue for him to do something like this.
Thinking things through, I get in my car and drive to the carpark at the local sports fields away from the Warwick House because I don’t want to raise suspicion because the longer that I’m parked outside their house with cameras on my car, the alert level is raised about something being wrong.
Scrolling through my phone, I look at everything that he has sent me over the last week or so, and there is nothing out of the ordinary, even with him giving me a thumbs up when I told him what the plans were for the morning last night. Going further back, I try to find if there is or was anything to give me any sort of clue to this sudden disappearing act that Keegan has pulled, but there isn’t any sort of sign that he was going to do this, and we had made plans for going to a concert in a week and a bits time.
Thinking things through for a few minutes, I drive down to the Diner known as the Tuckshop, which is a gem of the community where everyone stops off for Coffee and is an institution in Culver Valley despite being untouched for nearly 25 years with the once working light up sign now just an antique past its used by date but it’s still so popular.
Walking in there, our close friend Molly is working the take-away coffee counter for a few hours before she would try and join us if things got quiet at the Diner. “Hey Moll, Special K here?” I say that expecting him to be here down the back in the usual spot, we sit towards the back and just chill out sometimes until 1 a.m.
Molly looks at me and shakes her head. “Haven’t seen him since you two were here the other night but Dad probably saw him if he was here because I’ve only been here since 7:30”, she says as I check my watch, and somehow it’s only just pushing 8:45.
I nod and see Molly’s dad, Alex, coming out of the kitchen holding two trays of Sandwiches that he manages to control without dropping despite coming through two heavy double doors. Alex is almost your stereotypical mid-50s Greek man who has plenty of life experience and, despite being born in the country, holds the Greek accent and tends to use Greek phrases that nobody can ever understand.
“CHARLIE”, he says, following up with some Greek phrasing as usual, that I never understand and don’t think I ever will. “You go and sit down and I fix you your big breakfast special”, he says, somehow managing not to spill the two trays of Sandwiches he has to take down to the Church once a week to help feed the poor people.
“I’m all good Alex, I was just looking for Keegan and wondered if he was here earlier?” I ask as Alex thinks for a minute.
I see him shake his head “No, I would’ve remembered him being here today; last time I saw him was Tuesday night when I left and you three were sitting in the corner studying”, he says as I nod my head and let out a sigh before helping Alex load the Sandwiches into his van before heading out.
The obvious stop next is the library, and I’m hoping that I’ll be an idiot for rushing around town looking for Keegan when he would be sitting at the library with some dumb excuse like he forgot his phone or forgot to charge, which he’s done so many times before.
I head in there with my bag to study with my laptop and books in there and head to our usual spot and see just a handful of people there, none of them being Keegan, as I shake my head and sit down for a little bit to at least start. My concentration levels are almost zero, and I keep checking my phone before I realise it’s a lesson in futility to try and study. I go for another walk and clearly establish that Keegan isn’t here, and I pack my stuff up because it’s not worth studying because I’m going to be totally distracted for the rest of the day until I hear or see Keegs and not achieve a thing
Getting back in my car, I punch the steering wheel as I just shake my head in frustration at all this “WHAT THE FUCK KEEGS” I shout as someone walking past glares at me even though I’m sitting in the car with the doors closed and window up that they can hear me.
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I get my phone out of my pocket, and instead of texting him, I decide to ring him this time, which is rare for us to even talk this way. I ring him up, and the fact that his phone goes straight to voicemail isn’t a good sign either right now as I hear his voice on the voicemail. “Yo, it’s Keegs you know the drill leave the message and I’ll get back to ya.”
Sighing loudly, I’m frustrated but still leave him the message, “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, Keegs, but where the fuck are you? I can’t cover for you if I don’t know what’s going on… just ring me back straight away.
The morning of October 9, 2018, still lives in my memory as if it were just yesterday because you never forget the day that you discovered your childhood best friend had gone missing from your life with what you thought was going to be without a single note or any sort of reason why.
Standing outside Gusto, I know that I should be embarrassed for going up to a total stranger and asking him whether he was somebody that he isn’t and looking like a weirdo, but there was just something about that conversation that made me sure that I’d just reconnected with Keegan despite the denial and six years of age and body changes.
I know that I should head back inside, but I get my phone out and text my older brother Brock
“Hey bro, busy?”
There’s a three-hour time difference between here in Culver Valley, so it’s mid-afternoon, and I don’t know how my brother’s work schedule looks at the moment.
Brock: “Nah bro, what’s up?”
I stand there typing and deleting the text that I want to send before I ring Brock up to tell him about today.
Me: “Hey bro, hope I’m not disturbing you at all”
Brock: “Nah lil bro, just about to head off and pick up the boys from School, what’s up?”
Me: “I’m pretty sure I found Keegs bro”
Brock lets out a long sigh and I know what he is thinking because he’s always telling me to stop trying to find Keegan because if he wanted me to find him, he would have told me that I’m being ridiculous.
Brock: “I thought we’d gotten past this bro, remember when you thought you saw him with long hair in Bali… and then the time he was on the flight with you when you went to Hawaii?”
Me: “I know that I thought about it but this time I was absolutely certain it was him”
Brock: “Oh god Charlie, please tell me that you didn’t talk to him and act as if you knew him.”
I can tell how annoyed my brother is at me for this because he says to me that he misses Keegan as well; there would be a reason that he has for not telling me where the hell he went.
Me: “Well… I did talk to him but no I didn’t act is if I knew him, I just went up to him and asked if his name was Keegan because I looked at his eyes and I was certain.”
Brock: “Fuck sake Charlie, you really need to stop this”
Me: “I have but this time I was certain and there was just way too many coincidences for this to not be him like I got a good look at his face and when I stopped him outside the Café and he saw me, he looked panicked at first and he hid his necklace... that just happened to be the same sort of engraved ID tag necklace that we got each other for graduation”
Brock: “The $70 dollar cheap necklace? Come on there would be hundreds if not thousands of guys with the same generic necklace everywhere?”
Me: “Yeah, then why did he make extra effort to hide it then from me and look panicked?”
Brock: “Because some weird fuckwit stops him in the street and accuses him of being someone else”
Me: “I never accused him, I just asked whether his name was Keegan by any chance but never acted like I knew him, just said that he reminded me of someone that I knew a long time ago and just thought it was him”
Brock lets out a sigh as I know how often he has had to tell me repeatedly to stop this obsession of trying to find Keegan because as much as he understood that I had wanted to find my best friend after so long, but he was worried that I was going to get too obsessed and ruin my life over it.
Brock: “Alright, Charlie, I get it. You think it’s him. But you need to stop chasing ghosts. If it is Keegan, don’t you think he’d have reached out to you by now? It absolutely sucks that he left in the way that he did but remember he had his reasons and I know it would be nice to reach out to tell you where he is but it is what it is”
I pause, the weight of Brock’s words settling over me. I hate how he always makes so much sense and is the voice of reason in this situation as all I want is for him to just say go for it.
even though every fibre of my being is screaming that I just saw my best friend—the guy I grew up with, shared secrets with, laughed with through every dumb adventure we ever had. The same guy who vanished six years ago without so much as a goodbye.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I mutter, more to end the conversation than because I believe it.
Brock: “I’m just trying to look out for you, Charlie. I miss him too, but you’ve got to live your life, not spend it stuck in the past, chasing a guy who clearly doesn’t want to be found.”
Brock: “And just don’t stalk this guy ok”
I laugh a bit knowing Brock isn’t serious but at the same time he does worry that I’m going to get obsessive again about this being Keegan.
Me: “I know, Brock. Thanks.”
We hang up, but his words linger like an itch I can’t scratch. I lean against the café’s wall, staring at the sidewalk where “Ashton” disappeared moments ago. My gut tells me Brock’s wrong. That necklace wasn’t just a coincidence. Neither was the way his whole demeanour shifted when I said Keegan’s name.
I head back inside to finish the meeting, but my mind is elsewhere, replaying every detail of the encounter like a movie I can’t stop watching. The eyes, the slight hesitation, the damn necklace. I might not have all the answers now, but if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this: I’ll never stop looking for Keegan and I’m surer than ever that “Ashton” is really Keegs.
